Language Correlates of Risk Behaviors in African American Adolescents Language functioning has been linked to externalizing problem behaviors in children and adolescents and in turn, externalizing problem behaviors are predictive of drug use and high- risk sexual behavior (Li, Stanton et al. 2001; Brownlie, Beitchman et al. 2004). The long term objectives of this project are to improve understanding of how language skills protect against externalizing symptoms and high risk behaviors. In order to address these long term objectives, this project proposes the following specific aims: 1) to test the hypothesis that language functioning is inversely correlated with the outcome variables of increased adolescent externalizing problem behaviors, drug use, and high-risk sexual behavior and; 2) that these outcome variables are interrelated, and given this interrelation, language is associated with the trajectories of these risk behaviors in a unique developmental sequence. This is a one-year investigation designed to employ secondary analysis of data collected for an established adolescent cohort. The sample is urban African American adolescents of low SES for whom data have been collected since birth for the last 17 years. The measures to be analyzed include: language measures from age 2 1/2 to 14 years of age, measures of externalizing problem behaviors collected annually from age 6 years to present, and drug use and sexual risk questionnaires collected annually from ages 9 years to present. Juvenile justice records and urine screens will also be examined. The major data analysis strategy will use a mixture of models, including hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and generalized estimation equations (GEE), to calculate differential trajectories of development, examining the effect of language on externalizing behavior, drug use, and high-risk sexual behavior. At project end, an improved understanding of language functioning as a precursor of the aforementioned risk behaviors is anticipated. This, in turn, will provide information about important targets for intervention and prevention. Principal Investigator/Program Director (Last, First, Middle): Ford, Sabrina Narrative This project seeks to explore the association of language development to externalizing, drug use, and high-risk sexual behaviors in African American adolescents. PHS 398/2590 (Rev. 09/04, Reissued 4/2006) Page Continuation Format Page [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]